Appeals court dooms couple's building plan

In a case with impact along the entire California coast, a state Court of Appeals panel has upheld the power of the state Coastal Commission to ban development in coastal and mountain areas that are environmentally sensitive.

Acting on a building plan in the Santa Monica Mountains near Calabasas, the three-judge panel ruled that the Coastal Commission can block development in scenic corridors or land covered with coastal sage scrub and chaparral without buying the land.

The decision may end the effort of property owners Milos Douda and Trisha Douda to build a house in the hills along Mulholland Highway east of Las Virgenes Road.

The property is about a mile east of the new Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area visitor center at King Gillette Ranch, at Mulholland Highway and Las Virgenes Road.

In 2001, the Doudas applied to construct a 5,804-square-foot, 35-foot-high house, with a 1,092-square-foot garage and a pool and spa, on their land near Mulholland Highway at Cold Creek Canyon Road.

The property is in unincorporated Los Angeles County.

By an 8-0 vote, the Coastal Commission denied permission for the submitted plans and said the house would be &quot;highly intrusive&quot; in a view corridor that is also home to protected coastal sage and chaparral and animals that live in that environment.

The Doudas sued, but a Los Angeles County judge agreed with the commission's ruling.

The Doudas appealed, and argued that the Coastal Commission exceeded its jurisdiction by unilaterally declaring the proposed building site to be an environmentally sensitive habitat area, or ESHA.

The Doudas also argued that the location, about 4.5 miles from the Pacific Ocean, was too far inland to be regulated by the Coastal Commission.

In a decision released on Wednesday, the Appeals Court panel said state laws enacted after the passage of a coastal protection constitutional amendment by voters in 1972 require the commission to act to protect ESHAs, even if no agency had previously explained exactly where those areas are located.

One coastal advocate said this was the latest in a string of court victories for the commission.

&quot;The courts have repeatedly upheld the commission's power to determine on its own where sensitive areas are,&quot; said Linda Krop, chief lawyer at Santa Barbara's Environmental Defense Center.

Krop said property owners along the coast, and even five miles inland, have no legal expectation to build on environmentally sensitive areas.

She said that such a rule is not an unconstitutional confiscation of private property as long as the property owner has some other use for the land.

Stanley Lamport, an attorney who represented the Doudas, said it was too early to say if an appeal to the state Supreme Court would be attempted.

&quot;Obviously we're disappointed that the court didn't see that the Coastal Commission is declaring everything an ESHA, and putting itself in the role of local government, when the Legislature wanted there to be a sharing of power,&quot; Lamport said.

David Breemer, staff attorney for the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, said he thought the court overreached by saying a plot on Mulholland Highway in the Agoura-Calabasas area was ever intended to be regulated as a coastal property.

&quot;The Coastal Act is intended to protect views along the coast, not in the areas on the way to it,&quot; he said.

&quot;The language of the law says coastal' areas, and 4 1/2 miles inland you can't see the ocean.&quot;